


Thin Ice

by sinfuldesire_archivist



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-04
Updated: 2010-10-04
Packaged: 2018-09-03 09:05:41
Rating: Teen & Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8706265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinfuldesire_archivist/pseuds/sinfuldesire_archivist
Summary: In a split second, Sam's underwater.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the Sinful Desire archivists: this story was originally archived at [Sinful-Desire.org](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Sinful_Desire). To preserve the archive, we began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2016. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [Sinful Desire collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/sinfuldesire/profile).

In a split second, Sam’s underwater.

 

Dean is looking away, waiting for their dad to catch up so they can find this fucking werewolf and kill it, and it’s their first hunt together in ages because it’s Christmas break and this is the Winchesters idea of a family holiday. And Sam runs out onto the ice, and it cracks, and Sam goes down immediately, the water thick and cloying and black and so fucking dark it hurts, and Sam’s pupils are blown wide as he tries to swim upward towards the surface.

 

He can’t do it, though; his gloves and his jacket and his scarf and his heavy combat boots are making it nearly impossible to even move, and within moments, his entire body is frozen, cold setting in painfully. Sam sinks like a rock; he can swim but everything is aching, everything is fucking stuck, and Sam Winchester knows he’s gonna die at the bottom of this lake. Bubbles tear up out of his throat as he screams but it’s silent, it’s not going to do him any good, and it makes his fucking lungs burn like he’s on fire. And he knows he’s going to die.

 

Dean hears the splash and immediately whips around in time to see Sam sink. He drops everything; his gun, his jacket, his scarf, his gloves. He tears them off and runs out across the ice, slipping the entire way there and screaming for his father before reaching the Sam-sized hole in the ground and stripping his shoes off, diving in after Sammy and swimming down because his baby brother is drowning, he’s fucking drowning and Dean isn’t there for him and if Sam dies, Dean will die, too.

 

He can see Sam, and the kid looks like a doll in the water, brown hair stuck in a sort of statis, green eyes wide, his face too pale, and Dean automatically assumes the worst even as his body starts to shut down. He pushes through it, though, because he needs to save Sam; Sam is Dean’s everything and he can’t lose him. He can’t. He can feel hypothermia setting in and vaguely, through the water, like he’s hearing through lead earmuffs, he can hear their dad screaming for both of them.

 

Dean grabs Sam with one arm and pushes up towards the surface with the other, silt flaring up around him like an underwater dust storm, and he has to get to the top. He has to at least save Sammy. He can’t feel anything; it feels like it’s been hours underwater but it’s only been a few seconds and already he’s dying. He knows he’s fucking dying on the bottom of this lake in goddamn Wisconsin, but as long as Sam’s okay, death doesn’t fucking matter.

 

He feels John grab Sam and there’s a terrifying moment where Dean thinks the ice is going to break more and all three of them will drown to death if the hypothermia doesn’t murder them first, but John gets Sam up out of the water and then grips Dean’s wrists. There’s a mad scramble as the older man tries to get Dean out of the lake, and he finally does, grabbing his song tightly and squeezing him, holding onto him tightly, Dean shaking and shivering and holding onto his father in return before pulling away, freezing cold as he grabs Sam.

 

The thirteen year old is unconscious and Dean reaches for his abandoned jacket; he could care less about himself right now. He wraps Sam up and staggers to his feet, clutching his little brother close and he doesn’t let go; the werewolf is forgotten at the moment and John leads his sons back to their hotel, Dean murmuring soft encouragement to Sam to try and get his baby brother to wake up.

 

They get there and John wraps them in blankets until they look like the fucking Michelin Man, and then Sam wakes up, and he’s confused and scared and cold and wet and exhausted, but Dean is so relieved it hurts, and he kisses his little brother on the mouth, again and again and again, ignoring their father, and John ignores it. He looks the other way and Sam holds onto his brother tightly and he kisses back clumsily, because all he knows is that he almost died. He almost lost Dean.

 

Dean’s in tears by the time he’s down giving his little brother a bootleg version of CPR, and he smiles, pressing his forehead to Sam’s and nosing against him slightly. Sam is his everything. His everything. And as long as Sam’s okay… He can deal with death and whatever else comes along with it.


End file.
